Government cuts agriculture investments

Only a few days after the Prime Minister’s declaration, the majority passed the new budget that cuts expenses for all sectors, but the hardest blow was given to agriculture.

While government’s general expenses were cut with a total of 4.5%, agriculture expense cuts were almost four times higher, or 18.9% of the initial budget.

The government will give less money for all agriculture departments, but even less for irrigation and drainage programs. The reviewed budget shows that the expenses for irrigation and drainage have 1.1 billion ALL less, or 29% of the budget. Official data show that agriculture has historically been the most discriminated sector of public funds. Although it produces 18-19% of the GDP, it takes back only 0.5% of this sum by the budget.

Budget expenses have been oriented towards infrastructure, mainly for building new roads, while agriculture has not given more than 70 million USD for the entire year, what makes it the most discriminated priority of the budget. Despite the government’s and Prime Minister’s propaganda for having doubled agricultural exports, Albania continues to import annually 700 million EUR on agricultural goods, which makes it a sector with the most deteriorated commercial balance by importing 10 times more than exporting.

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